Written by Matt Fraction
Art by Mike Deodato
Matt Fraction, who spent most of 2006 reminding everybody how easy it can look to make really great comics (Casanova,) has been biding his time for the first three issues of this War Journal relaunch. Although old school Punisher fans (and yes, apparently some exist) are going to be disappointed to find out (if they don't already know) that no, the new War Journal doesn't have gun-porn pages devoted to the big P's favorite weapons. They may be disappointed to also find out that the pages of this issue barely even acknowledge the Punisher's existence (even though the issue is devoted to the wake of someone he himself killed back in issue one), and he doesn't show up in full costume until the last page of the book.
As per the usual, anything that old school comics fans are disappointed about translates into "a comic you might actually enjoy reading, as opposed to Civil War #7, which unsurprisingly, you won't." (The long delayed Civil War finale was released yesterday, once again proving that regardless of what comics fans and comics companies claim, nothing ever changes the status quo in comic books, and nothing that's supposed to be a big deal ever really is.)
See, when a supposedly "big day" in comics is trumpeted by comic companies, what that means to the buyer is that something "big" is going to happen, and in this case, "big" means that any regular comics junkie is going to have to start buying more comics, or else they won't be able to "fully" enjoy the comics that they were going to read anyway. Civil War, the "big" item in reference has a few spin-off issues to come out in the next week. That's no big deal, ten, fifteen dollars. Then you add in the Captain America series, which leads directly out of the final "shocking" pages of Civil War. (To be fair, i don't believe anyone called the final pages "shocking." If they did, they must have been referring to the fisting sensation they felt in their rectum while they were reading the issue, but that had more to do with what their neglected spouse was doing than anything that occurred in the issue. Captain America walking away from a fight because he didn't feel like punching a NY fireman isn't really shocking. It's just lame-ass storytelling.)
Either way, everybody wants to read about what Captain America is going to be doing in prison, so there's another three bucks. Meanwhile, the New Avengers is going to be full of all the "renegade" super-heroes, and it's led by the female-groin kicking, likes to use the backdoor on his wife (read Alias #1, i ain't fooling) Luke Cage--so it's not time to drop that book yet. Two weeks later, you've got the Mighty Avengers, otherwise known as the "let's watch fascist Iron Man hang around a bunch of losers called Ms. Marvel and Yellowjacket and pretend that we're not chocking on our own bile," but still, it's an Avengers book, and it might explain why half the Marvel universe decided to act totally out of character for the last year, so we've now past the twenty dollar mark.
On top of that, you might even fall into the Spider-man trap--after all, his post-Civil War marketing trick is a return to the black costume, which, we're sure, has nothing to do with the fact that the upcoming movie includes the black costume. One hopes you're not that gullible. (The total now surpasses the 35 mark.)
Then there's the three or four new series starting up, like Namor and Omega Flight. They seem to be connected, somehow, and since you're already buying Spider-man and a comic featuring a character named Yellowjacket, who are you to ignore the adventures of the Sea King or super-heroes in Canada? (Seriously, who are you?)
Which, because this can only go so long before I get sick of it, brings us back to the Punisher, and his War Journal. (If only Fraction had the balls to call the damn book The Punisher's Secret Diary.) Now, ole P has had his Civil War moments (all of which have been somewhat rote and pointless, much like Civil War as a whole), so with issue 4, Fraction gets his chance to start the series proper. And what a start he gives it--a bar full of villains surrounding the too-tall corpse of one of the Punisher's victims, drinking themselves even stupider than they were cold sober (considering their costumes, that's pretty goddamn stupid.) As the humor and overall patheticness of an Marvel Irish Wake reaches it's only logical conclusion, the book leaves the realm of "funny idea" and becomes "great fucking idea." Thanks to one of those comic-book-magic poisons, all these losers have been downing fatally-laced brew all night--and to top it off, the Punisher uses kerosene to blow the fuckers up on his way out the door. (Thanks to a Boogie Nights mustache, he's been chortling in the role of the bartender since the first loser walked in.)
No, this isn't going to re-invent the wheel, but if anybodies counting on DC or Marvel to start seriously bucking formula at this point, they should take their fist off their dick and see if they can swallow it--more success in fantasy will likely be found there. But Fraction, just as he did with every page of Casanova, continues to show off that being a cocky, funny and smart-as-hell writer can make genre specific books work just as well as anything in the last issue of MOME.
-Tucker Stone, 2007
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